243 lines
11 KiB
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243 lines
11 KiB
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<TITLE>The Linux Documentation Project: Weekly News for 2001-03-06</TITLE>
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<H1><FONT FACE="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">
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LDP Weekly News<br>
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2001-03-06
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</FONT></H1>
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</TD>
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</TR>
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</TABLE>
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</DIV>
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<P>
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<TABLE BORDER="1" CELLSPACING="0" CELLPADDING="10" WIDTH="100%">
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<tr align="left" valign="top" bgcolor="#ffffff">
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<td>
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<h2>About the LDP</h2>
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<p>The Linux Documentation Project is developing free, high quality documentation
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for the GNU/Linux operating system. This includes the creation of HOWTOs and Guides,
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and collaboration with other documentation groups.
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<p>If you've always wanted to help Linux reach
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Total World Domination(tm), but you're not a programmer,
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there's still something you can do. Help the LDP!
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<p>The LDP keeps a page of resources for authors at
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<a href="http://www.linuxdoc.org/authors/">http://www.linuxdoc.org/authors/</a>.
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Contributions are always welcome.
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<p>For more LDP Weekly News, go to
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<a href="http://www.linuxdoc.org/ldpwn/">http://www.linuxdoc.org/ldpwn/</a>
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<h2>New Documents</h2>
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<ul>
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<li><b>VCR HOWTO</b><br>
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<a href="http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/VCR-HOWTO.html">http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/VCR-HOWTO.html</a><br>
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Version 0.01, Brian Hayward, <a href="mailto:twivel@slothmud.org">twivel@slothmud.org</a>
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<p>This is a guide to setting up your GNU/Linux workstation as a digital VCR using
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the video4linux driver and a supported tuner card.</li>
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</ul>
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<h2>Updated Documents</h2>
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<ul>
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<li><b>SLIP/PPP Emulator mini-HOWTO</b><br>
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<a href="http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/mini/SLIP-PPP-Emulator/">http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/mini/SLIP-PPP-Emulator/</a><br>
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Version 3.1, Irish, <a href="mailto:irish@eskimo.com">irish@eskimo.com</a>
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</li>
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<p><li><b>Linux + Windows 95 mini-HOWTO</b><br>
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<a href="http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/mini/Linux+Win95/">http:/www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/mini/Linux+Win95/</a><br>
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Version 1.1, Jonathon Katz, <a href="mailto:jkatz@cpio.net">jkatz@cpio.net</a>
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</li>
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<p><li><b>LDAP Linux HOWTO</b><br>
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<a href="http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/LDAP-HOWTO.html">http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/LDAP-HOWTO.html</a><br>
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Version 1.04, Luiz Ernesto Pinheiro Malere, <a href="mailto:malere@yahoo.com">malere@yahoocom</a>
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</li>
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<p><li><b>Linux Frequently Asked Questions with Answers</b><br>
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<a href="http://www.linuxdoc.org/FAQ/Linux-FAQ/">http://www.linuxdoc.org/FAQ/Linux-FAQ/</a><br>
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Robert Kiesling, <a href="mailto:rkiesling@mainmatter.com">rkiesling@mainmatter.com</a>
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</li>
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<p><li><b>CPU Design HOWTO</b><br>
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<a href="http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/CPU-Design-HOWTO.html">http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/CPU-Design-HOWTO.html</a><br>
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Version 11.0, Alavoor Vasudevan, <a href="mailto:alavoor@yahoo.com">alavoor@yahoo.com</a>
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</li>
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<p><li><b>Linux DPT Hardware RAID mini-HOWTO</b><br>
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<a href="http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/mini/DPT-Hardware-RAID.html">http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/mini/DPT-Hardware-RAID.html</a><br>
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Version 1.4, Ram Samudrala, <a href="mailto:me@ram.org">me@ram.org</a>
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</li>
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<p><li><b>Modem HOWTO</b><br>
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<a href="http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/Modem-HOWTO.html">http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/Modem-HOWTO.html</a><br>
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Version 0.15, David S. Lawyer, <a href="mailto:dave@lafn.org">dave@lafn.org</a>
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</li>
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</ul>
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<h2>Stale Mirror Issues</h2>
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<p>We are continuing to uncover stale LDP HOWTOs all around the net. David S. Lawyer,
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an LDP author as well as an LDP volunteer, did some research with Google and a single
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HOWTO, and uncovered some very surprising and very disturbing facts. Here is his report.
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<p><table bgcolor=#efefef cellpadding=10><tr><td>
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<h2>Stale HOWTOs (the case of Modem-HOWTO)</h2>
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<i>by David S. Lawyer, Mar. 7, 2001</i>
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<p>Out-of-date (stale) documentation is a major problem for Linux. This
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is also a problem in the Linux Documentation Project (LDP). One well
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known reason for stale documents is that document authors sometimes
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don't revise their documents frequently enough. But even if they are
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revised frequently, people searching for information may not find
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up-to-date versions.
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<p>Here's why. Even though the Linux Documentation Project (LDP) has
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the most recent versions of its documents on over 200 mirror sites,
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several hundred other sites also carry LDP documents. Unfortunately,
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most of these have stale documentation. Why don't people just go to
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the mirror sites and avoid the other sites? The reason is that many
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people search for information about Linux using one of the many search
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engines available on the Internet. More likely than not, such a
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search engine will find out-of-date Linux documents. While the LDP
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sites have a search engine for searching the LDP site, it's often
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advantageous to search the entire Web since there are many other
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documents available besides just LDP's. But doing so is likely to
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find stale documentation.
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<p>Suppose one finds a LDP HOWTO by using a search engine. Can't they
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just look at the date of the document and also click on a link to a
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mirror site that will have the latest document. Unfortunately, this
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isn't too easy to do. What people usually find with a search engine
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is not the entire document, but only a chapter of a document. The
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html documents are usually split up into chapters so that they will
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download fast.
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<p>Each chapter doesn't contain version or date information (perhaps it
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should). While there may be a chapter in the document that contains a
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link to the latest version, it's not likely to be in the chapter that
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one finds with a search engine. To find such a link (if it exists)
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requires first clicking on the "contents" link to get to the
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table-of-contents page. Then one might browse the contents to try to
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find a link to another chapter which itself might contain a link to
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the most recent version. It's not simple, sure or fast so few readers
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are likely to do this.
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<p>I did a quick survey to find out which versions of Modem-HOWTO were on
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the Internet. Here's the results: (Last col. is number of sites on
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the web per Google on Mar. 2, 2001.)
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<p><table border=0>
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<tr><th>Version</th><th>Date</th><th>Count</th></tr>
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<tr><td>v0.14</td><td>Feb. 2001</td><td align=right> 0</td></tr>
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<tr><td>v0.13</td><td>Feb. 2001</td><td align=right> 0</td></tr>
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<tr><td>v0.12</td><td>Dec. 2000</td><td align=right> 76</td></tr>
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<tr><td>v0.11</td><td>June 2000</td><td align=right> 118</td></tr>
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<tr><td>v0.10</td><td>May 2000</td><td align=right> 60</td></tr>
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<tr><td>v0.09</td><td>Mar. 2000</td><td align=right> 18</td></tr>
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<tr><td>v0.08</td><td>Jan. 2000</td><td align=right> 61</td></tr>
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<tr><td>v0.07</td><td>Nov. 1999</td><td align=right> 3</td></tr>
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<tr><td>v0.06</td><td>Nov. 1999</td><td align=right> 2</td></tr>
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<tr><td>v0.05</td><td>Oct. 1999</td><td align=right> 17</td></tr>
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<tr><td>v0.04</td><td>Aug. 1999</td><td align=right> 64</td></tr>
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<tr><td>v0.03</td><td>May 1999</td><td align=right> 11</td></tr>
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<tr><td>v0.02</td><td>Mar. 1999</td><td align=right> 73</td></tr>
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<tr><td>v0.01</td><td>Jan. 1999</td><td align=right> 58</td></tr>
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<tr><td>v0.00</td><td>Dec. 1998</td><td align=right> 63</td></tr>
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</table>
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<p>The situation is not quite as dire as shown above since in some cases
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Google doesn't have the latest info: the site has been updated but
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Google doesn't know about it, or the site may be dead. But a spot
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check indicated that roughly 80% of them still exist as listed. The
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sites that were supposed to have v0.12 frequently had the latest
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version.
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<p>For a small minority of cases there's double counting since some sites
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have HOWTOs in more than one format. Also, a small minority of sites
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have stale HOWTOs in a directory named "archives", "old", etc. This
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is OK since they are being correctly classified.
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<p>In another respect the situation is even worse than described above
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since the Modem-HOWTO was a fork from the Serial-HOWTO. Over 200 old
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versions of Serial-HOWTO (prior to the first version on Modem-HOWTO)
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are still on the Internet. They all contain quite obsolete
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information about modems.
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<p>Here's some details on how I did the search. I searched using
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google.com with search terms: Modem-HOWTO "modulation details" v0.xx
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Where xx = 00, 01, 02, etc. The phrase ""modulation details" is from
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the table-of-contents so as to always select the HTML table of
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contents file (for split HTML-HOWTOs) . This is needed since v0.xx is
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sometimes also in chapter 1 and used so that readers can click on a
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link to LDP to see if they have the latest version. If "modulation
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details" were omitted there would be double counting. Also,
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"modulation details" removes hits on lists/catalogs of HOWTOS.
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There's still some more details on how I did it but they're not of
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general interest and are thus omitted.
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<p>Thus there are a lot of out-of-date versions of LDP docs (and other
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documentation) on the Internet. One way to try to lessen this problem
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would be to put some requirement into the license so that when a
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document becomes outdated it must be clearly labeled as such. Such
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labeling needs to be seen before one clicks on the document. But how
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can this be assured? What might help would be to add a suffix to the
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name of the document to indicate that it's outdated.
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</td></tr></table>
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<p>As you can see, stale documentation on the public network is
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a serious problem. We don't have the resources to be the documentation police
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on the network, but we ask that if you wish to mirror LDP documents, to do so
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responsibly, and keep your mirror up to date.
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<p>We also recommend that users use our mirror list, at
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<a href="http://www.linuxdoc.org/mirrors.html">http://www.linuxdoc.org/mirrors.html</a>.
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Our "official" mirrors are generally well maintained and up to date with the latest
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HOWTOs.
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</td>
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</tr>
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</TABLE>
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</body></html>
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